Christian Bale: An American In China (NPR Radio Interview)

ありがとう、Fさん！
Source: NPR - Christian Bale: An American In China

這是 Christian Bale 在昨天接受 NPR 廣播訪問，談到『金陵十三釵』。我還沒全體聽完，Bale 在此時的口音是非常標準清晰的美國口音，如果聽力有一定程度的，這段訪談的內容是很容易聽懂的也很容易理解的。雖然他這個時候講話很快，不過這段真的比去年獎季簡單很多。我不知道為何他在這個時候會以美國口音說話，因為他理論上這段時間並沒有拍什麼戲不需轉換口音，除非他已經在偷偷拍 "Lawless"？不過，Terrence Malick 伯伯的片台詞通常都很少，應該沒啥機會讓他講美國英文。或許，又是因為他的角色 John Miller 是個美國人，他選擇以美國口音接受訪談也說不定。

Bale 的腔調是我每次聽他 Interview 的重點之一，我是比較喜歡他說英國口音啦。

也有文字的敘述。大家先看看，有機會我會在過年假期翻譯一下。:)

January 21, 2012

Christian Bale's latest character is a drifter. John Miller is no Batman; he's an Oklahoma mortician by trade and a soldier of fortune in temperament.

Miller comes to do business in Nanjing, China. He arrives in 1937 just as the Japanese army invades and brutalizes the city. Known as the Nanjing Massacre, the genocide that followed has become one of the defining historical events of modern China.

Bale is perhaps best known for playing Batman. He also won an Academy Award last year for The Fighter. His new movie, The Flowers of War, is China's Oscar nominee for best foreign language film. As Bale tells Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon, he couldn't pass up the chance to work with the film's director, Zhang Yimou.

A Unique Opportunity

"It's not very often that you get an opportunity to work on a movie that's ... 60 percent in Mandarin, made within China," Bale says, "and get to experience that entirely different culture of filmmaking."

Zhang wouldn't tell cast members what they would shoot the next day until late the night before. Keeping the actors in suspense "just gives that extra spontaneity," Bale says. "It's far more human."

The movie reportedly cost $100 million to make. Some critics charge that the film is an expensive attempt on the part of the Chinese government to soften its image, but Bale is confident that Zhang wouldn't be interested in propaganda efforts.

"I always do say that once you're within a movie ... sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees," he says. "But I've really assessed this [charge], and I can't bring myself to come to agree with it in any way whatsoever."

'A Storm Within'

Bale describes his character as a mechanically inclined jack-of-all-trades from the U.S., an escapee of the Dust Bowl who ends up working on cargo ships.

"He's kind of a character who is accustomed to raucous and chaotic people around him. That's what he likes, that's where he finds his comfort," he says. "He's definitely pursuing excess with a vengeance — as a means, we find out later, to deal with pain."

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese were slaughtered in the Nanjing Massacre, but the mass atrocities committed against the women gave rise to another name for the horror: The Rape of Nanjing. In The Flowers of War, Bale's character must choose between saving himself and helping a group of women escape the violence.

"He appears to be an absolute reckless, drunken, good-time guy, who cares nothing about anybody but just making a quick buck for himself and moving on," Bale says. "That's indeed how he would be thinking of this war to start with ... but eventually it comes to be his own war."
American John Miller (Bale) must choose between saving himself and helping a group of Chinese women escape atrocities committed by the Japanese during World War II.
Wrekin Hill Entertainment

American John Miller (Bale) must choose between saving himself and helping a group of Chinese women escape atrocities committed by the Japanese during World War II.

The Art Of Acting

The Flowers of War was the first movie for many of the actors on the set. "I always like working with people making their first film," Bale says. "There's that enthusiasm, that naivete about it."

One of Bale's first encounters with his female costars was a scene where the women were sobbing. There were a lot of scenes where they had to cry.

"I know how much it takes out of somebody, how exhausting it is when you're in that state, and I was trying to work out, how on earth are they maintaining this all the time?" he says.

As Bale looked on, an actress suddenly winked at him and smiled.

"They're just fantastic actresses," he says. "They can cry their eyes out and keep you fooled. All the time, they're telling jokes with each other, and then as soon as [Zhang] would walk by, they'd start crying again," he says. "But they were ... better actors than I will ever be able to be."

Bale says his own joy of acting comes from "the psychology of recognizing how different you can make yourself."

"I just find the whole notion that as adults we get to be storytellers just hilarious," he says, "but something that I would never want to miss out on."